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Sunday, July 15, 2012

The Many Faces of Rune

Rune, with his sister and mother, live
on an island in the Arctic. Settled in the 15th Century by witches
fleeing the inquisitions in Europe, Galdorheim--Witches’ Home--is a
very unattractive piece of real estate. To any intrepid explorers or
walrus hunters who happen to pass by, it’s a lump of ice with
nothing to recommend even a brief stop.

This is a perfect situation for the
witches. They use their combined magic, borrowing just a bit from
every witch and warlock, to maintain a protective bubble around the
village where they live. Unseen, they live in peace, occasionally
visiting the northern shores of Norway to trade their magical
trinkets to Wiccan wannabes in exchange for items not easily obtained
through magic. Flat screen TVs, Blu Ray players, DVDs, and Satphones
are far too expensive in terms of magic to bother with spelling up.
Besides they wouldn't get the latest movies and news reports without
letting a little of the outside world into theirs.

Rune’s sister Katrina (Kat) is the
one witch on the island who can’t perform magic spells. True, every
young witch needs to learn the tools of the magical trade: how to
cast a spell properly being the main requirement. Kat, however, can’t
cast a spell without it going horribly wrong.

The story of Bad Spelling, the
first book in the Witches of Galdorheim series, deals with Kat’s
ineptitude and her determination to leave Galdorheim to find her
father’s family, a tribe of Siberian fisher/hunters.

Unlike Kat, her younger brother Rune is
a natural magician. He masters spells quickly, but like extra smart
kids everywhere, idle hands can lead to mischief. At the opening of
Bad Spelling, we see Rune as:

A SMART ALEC (Bad Spelling)

Kat ran up the steps of the schoolhouse
as a flash of red light pulsed from the space beneath the front door.
A screech of girlish laughter followed by shouts of “yes!” and
“whoa!” got louder when she pulled the door open. Her heart sank.
Dang it. Late again.

A muffled bang accompanied by puffs of
red and violet smoke billowing out from the back of the room gave her
cover to rush to the last available seat. When the smoke cleared, Kat
rolled her eyes, barely controlling a snort. Her brother Rune’s
used-to-be vampire bat now clung to his finger chirping angrily while
his best friend’s was-a-rat now stared with hungry eyes at it in
the temporary form of a scruffy gray cat.

Unfazed, Miss Mariah cleared her throat
and glared at the boys. “Would you please wait for everyone else?”
Rune and Dalton grinned at each other and transformed their
respective familiars back to their original forms.

Grow up, bro. Really! Kat
thought, but a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. She was
proud of Rune’s mad skills, since she couldn’t spell herself out
of a beanbag chair. She knew she had the power; everybody knew it.
What she lacked was control. Every spell she tried to cast went wrong
in the most disastrous way.

Rune’s bat flapped to the rafters and
hung upside down, glaring down at his owner. Rune dodged a drop of
guano, picked up his wand, and tapped it on the desktop. With a
high-pitched squeak, the bat dropped to the desk and folded its
wings, but it didn’t look happy.

Miss Mariah muttered, “Fiksu aasi
noita.”* She watched Kat as she hunched over and dropped her book
bag on the floor. “Nice of you to join us, Katrina. See me after
class about your tardiness.”

She faced the class. “Now then,
please take out your chalk and wands for today’s lesson, which is,”
she shot a semi-annoyed look at Rune and Dalton, “transformation.”
The Wiccan students rustled bags and whispered to each other while
they did as told.

***

* Fiksu aasi noita is Icelandic for
smart-ass kid.

But he’s not just a troublemaker,
Rune is close to his sister and does his best to protect her since
her own magic sucks. Rune is:

A WARRIOR (Midnight Oil)

Thordis hurried
toward the glade. Rune and Ivansi ran after her. She glanced at Rune
to her right, then in front, and to her left. He was running in
circles around her. She scowled at the boy’s anxious urging for her
to move faster. Picking her feet up from the ground, she darted
forward in a smooth glide. Rune and Ivansi hurried to keep up with
her.

Thordis stopped dead when the howling
wind and dragon’s scream split the air. “Hurry! The game is on,”
Thordis yelled over the deafening noise. The three rescuers surged
onward toward the clearing. The gap in the hedge of thorns was still
open, and they rushed through.

“That’s the
tree,” Thordis exclaimed, pointing to the most massive tree on the
glade’s edge.

The three hurried
to the foot of the tree, searching for an opening. His lips pressed
tight with worry, Rune dropped to one knee and ripped back a chunk of
bark, flinging it behind him. “Here! Here it is!” he shouted.

“Stand back,
Rune.” Thordis raised her wand. Rune grabbed his own firewood wand
from an inner pocket. As one, two beams shot toward the crack in the
tree. A scorching violet from the combined purple and red sent smoke
curling up. Ivansi stood helpless behind them, staring intently at
the deepening hole. Ringed with glowing embers, the gap widened,
while flames climbed up the trunk.

The hole in the tree grew wider and
deeper. Snakes slithered out of the hole. The small ones scurried
away into the underbrush. A python, slower and more massive, writhed
to free itself from the flaming maw. Ivansi leaped forward and
grabbed the snake behind its head. The scaly reptile twisted, its
mouth gaping. Grasping the snake further down its long body, Ivansi
grunted as he picked it up and threw it into the undergrowth. Another
huge snake emerged, this time an anaconda. Thicker and stronger than
the python, it took longer for Ivansi to overpower it.

The witch and the warlock never wavered
from burning away the tree. The roaring above their heads continued.
Thordis risked a quick glance upward. Two monstrous creatures
grappled in the sky. Ajatar’s dragon avatar battled a new form—a
pure white roc. Another creature of air and flight, Ilmatar had
become a giant bird, the largest ever known in reality or legend. The
roc’s wingspan matched that of Ilmatar’s dragon, but the snowy
body was smaller. Her feathers, although pure white, flashed sparks
of gold and silver looking like minute explosions of fireworks
bursting all around.

Yes, Rune is brave and jumps right into
the fray to rescue his sister. But Rune isn’t all sweet and strong.
For much of the time, like younger brothers everywhere, he’s just:

PLAIN ANNOYING (Scotch Broom)

Shouldering the pack, she went out on
the streets of Thurso and made her way back to the train station. The
ticket master could give her directions to the city limits. Thordis
told her to walk south of Thurso until she reached the wilds. Only
then could she use the message packets to guide her the rest of the
way. She took the short steps up to the platform and stopped dead
still.

There, on the train side of the
platform looking down the rails stood a familiar figure. His back was
to her but without a doubt, she knew exactly who it was.

“Rune,” she whispered in disgust.
Her mouth tightened, and she planted her hands on her hips. She
seriously contemplated shoving him onto the tracks, but one look told
her no train was coming. “What’re you doing here?” she hissed
as she approached him.

He whipped around and plastered a big
grin on his face. “Hey, Kat! What a coincidence finding you here.
Small country, eh?”

“Don’t give
me that. Why are you here, and does Mom know it?” Kat dropped her
bag at her feet and clenched her fists. She couldn’t remember ever
being so ticked off at Rune.

“Well, maybe
not. Hey, Kat, she was sending me to Transylvania! That
sucks...literally.”

“Just because you didn’t want...Transylvania? Why in the world was she sending
you there?” Kat frowned, anger flooding away as curiosity rolled
in.

“To visit my
biological father, Drakos. Seems Mom told him to take some interest
in me. Result: I get schlepped off to Transylvania to spend the
winter with some guy I’ve never even met!”

“Still, I don’t
want you here. Just go back home and leave me alone!”

“Hey! If I’d
left you alone when you just had to
go to Siberia to find Boris’ family, you’d be giant-meat now.”

Kat’s face
burned. She ground her teeth. “Shove it in my face all the time,
don’t you? It wasn’t my fault I didn’t have any magic.”

“No, but since
you didn’t, it was your dear little brother who saved your butt
again, and again, and again!”

Kat raised her
fist; her arm twitched with the effort of not socking him one. She
whirled away just in time to notice the other people standing on the
platform staring at them. She turned back to Rune and snarled at him.
“Just. Go. Home.”

I like that you highlighting Rune. He's such a great character. I liked the short story you wrote about him too.Keep the series going, You've done all the deep, deep research, don't let it go to waste. I want more adventures of Kat. I've read the series. Loved the books.